Letters to the Editor, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018

Technical training needed in schools

While the expansion and growth of Arthrex in Naples are to be applauded and encouraged, I am disturbed -- and Naples and the state of Florida should be disturbed -- for the following reasons:

+ The jobs are mainly service jobs and not technical/high skill jobs such as the jobs needed for the new Arthrex expansion in South Carolina as described in your Oct. 20 article, "Arthrex will expand in S.C. partly due to apparent limits to growth in Collier."

+ This illustrates the lack of technical training available from Florida's colleges and technical schools.

Florida and Collier County and Lee County schools need to provide the training for the new, high-paying jobs that will take the state to better, higher-paying jobs so that expanding companies like Arthrex can find a home here.

Stephen Schechter, Bonita Springs

Too many awards, except ...

There are too many awards shows on TV. The Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars, the Tonys, the CMA awards. The list goes on and on. They have become nothing more than self-aggrandizing mutual admiration extravaganzas.

Their number and quality dilute their importance to the entertainment industry and the enjoyment of the general public. Maybe some should be eliminated.

However, let's not forget the importance and significance of Everybody Gets a Trophy Day and, of course, The Ira Linzer Award for Outstanding Performance in the Field of Excellence.

Ira Linzer, Naples

End costly sugar program

Sen. Marco Rubio is in the pocket of the nation's beet and cane sugar cartels. Rubio continually votes to maintain the U.S. sugar program. Why? It is really quite simple. Rubio received well over $50,000 in political donations from the sugar cartels since coming to Washington in 2011.

Thanks to Rubio and others, the U.S. sugar program continues. The sugar program is a Soviet-style command and control scheme that restricts planting and imports. This inflates the price of sugar in the United States to almost double the world price. So, when you go to the store to buy a snack cake or anything sweetened, you pay more. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the program means Americans pay $3.5 billion every year in increased grocery costs, which breaks down to upwards of $50 per family.

In Rubio's six years in office, he repeatedly voted against sugar reform costing each Florida family an additional $300 for groceries. You have to ask yourself, is my senator really fighting to make my life better or is he just another politician in it for the campaign contributions? It's time for Rubio to step up and end this costly government giveaway to the cartels.

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The Independent Bakers' Association is an international trade association that fights to protect the interests of mostly family-owned wholesale bakers and allied trades. For more information about the IBA and sugar program corruption, visit IBAbaker.com.

Nicholas A. Pyle, Washington, D.C.

President, Independent Bakers' Association

Dealing with a bully

Martin Schram’s column on Jan. 7 (“It is time for a patriotic Republican intervention”) is a vicious rebuke of President Donald Trump’s response to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who threatened that “the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike and a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office ....”

Schram uses phrases to smear the president: “spun perilously out of control,” “mindless and dangerous,” “immature and inexperienced,” etc. Schram doesn’t propose how the president should have responded, but he apparently wants him to be more statesmanlike.

Sometimes a statesmanlike response doesn’t work with a street bully.

Jerry Ingenthron, Naples

Newspaper in decline

As a full-time resident of Asheville, North Carolina, and part-time resident here in Naples, I have experienced firsthand the demise of one and the ongoing demise of another fine newspaper.

Prior to the takeover of the Asheville Citizen-Times by USA TODAY, we had a vibrant daily publication of both news and sports. Since the takeover, news is a day late, since the paper is printed in Greenville, South Carolina, with a 6 p.m. print deadline and then trucked to Asheville. Thus, Monday’s news and sports will be in Wednesday’s paper.

The Naples Daily News, prior to becoming part of USA TODAY, was a great, informative publication of local, national and international news, along with a superb sports section. Now, periodical-type articles fill up the so-called news section and the sports section is in deep decline. In case anyone didn't notice, neither the Jan. 7 or following day’s edition mentioned a word or posted a score relating to college basketball.

It seems to me that if you're going to include "Daily News" in your name, that's what you should strive to achieve. Otherwise, how about "Naples Weekly Periodical." It is sad to see a great newspaper headed in the same ruinous direction as the Asheville newspaper. Your readers deserve better.

Philip J. Murphy, Asheville, N.C.

Focus on infrastructure

It just struck me as somewhat humorous that, on Jan. 1, the day that President Donald Trump was lauding his tax cut, which will add about $1.5 trillion to our national debt, your paper listed as a top editorial priority "Finding funds to catch up on the infrastructure."

The tax cut, which will mainly aid the very wealthy, will be crowed about by the Republicans as they start to demand reductions in needed services for the general public, including Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, health care for children (CHIP) and other vital services.

The fact is that they do not want to look at past history to see that when tax cuts have been made by former presidents, including Ronald Reagan, our national debt increased with the results that the rich have become richer and the general public poorer. Economists in general, and former President George H.W. Bush, call the "trickle-down theory" of tax cuts "voodoo economics" or, in other words, "nonsensical!"

All of America desperately needs renewed and repaired infrastructure, yet we give more money to our wealthy citizens instead of placing those funds in locations where they will create thousands and thousands of jobs in rebuilding and renewing our roads, bridges, railways, dams, underground piping and other areas.

Is this a sensible approach to national improvement? I don't think so.

Hy Bershad, Naples

Living in a hate cave

The recent column by Ann McFeatters, of the Tribune News Service, was an embarrassment to the writer and your newspaper as well. It is one thing to express an opinion, it is another to write in political demagoguery.

She lists 12 reasons why "Many now think he (Trump) is the most dangerous president in U.S. history. Her reasons are ludicrous and she should be brought to task for authoring such a biased and ignorant column.

Just a sample of her reasons: Trump is ruining America's respect for the FBI and IRS (really?); he is using the presidency to make millions (Bill Clinton/Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton?); he is unpatriotic; he does not know what he is doing.

Perhaps the author should tune into what is really happening in our country, instead of living in her own "hate cave."

Ronald J. Mazzucco, Naples

More modesty needed

A goal of the Golden Globes was to highlight and stomp out sexual harassment.

It was encouraging to see a more conservative attire than in past years, but there was still plenty of suggestive cleavage hanging out.

Doesn't this contradict the desired goal?

Ward Eldred, Naples

Obey rules of the road

Welcome snowbirds! I would like to make a couple of suggestions.

+ Please familiarize yourselves with the speed limits on our very congested roads. If the speed is posted at 50 mph or 55 mph, please don't drive in the fast line at 35 mph.

+ When stopped at a red light, please pull up to the car in front of you; not doing so often backs up the stopped lane, thereby closing off the turn lane for those wishing to turn.

As I mentioned, our roads are very congested at this time of year and every little bit of cooperation helps alleviate the situation. Thank you all in advance.

Helen Wright, Naples

News reporting a dying art

Does anyone read these articles that you print from The Washington Post?

Take, for example, the article headlined "Uninsured overuse emergency rooms," by Carolyn Y. Johnson. She wrote this 14-paragraph article and said nothing.

Go into an emergency room almost anytime and you'll see what drives costs up. The place is half to three-quarters full of people who don't pay for any care received. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure this out.

My wife wants me to buy this paper on Sundays; otherwise, I wouldn't have seen this worthless article. For me, today's newspapers are not fit for purchase. Don't you think you would sell more papers if you had a few articles with a little conservative opinions in them?

The art of news reporting is gone.

John Ketterman, Naples

Hoping Trump succeeds

Just when you have heard enough from the progressive left, they come up with a new personal attack on the mental fitness of Donald Trump to be our president. We are now entering the era of "psychiatricfication" of political discourse.

This is a dangerous place for our society to be. The attempt to make accusations of mental illness on someone with a different political worldview is something the Russians, Chinese and dictatorships have condoned. If you can't defeat the opposition, destroy them personally.

The relevance of Trump is his ability to subtract power and resources from Washington. The result is less centralized control of government and more freedom and choice for the American people at the state and local level.

As Friedrich Hayek, author of "The Road to Serfdom," has shown us, the advancing power of government makes a dictatorship possible. Trump is working to restore our system of checks and balances. I for one hope he succeeds.

Carol Montpetit, Marco Island

First steps for Oprah

I think Oprah Winfrey is a remarkable woman. But rather than go directly for the presidency, I think it would be better if she first served as either secretary of state or as a justice of the Supreme Court.